But wait, Stanley didn’t eliminate the jobs, it just moved them. To Thailand, where labor is paid 75% less than in Connecticut. Indeed, the major foreign competitor to Stanley turns out to be… Stanley!
How many MAGA supporters know this??? Ask a MAGA - did you know? "America First" - NOT on your life! Profits over the American People! Billionaires........
I will covet and continue to use my old Craftsman and Stanley tools made in the USA. Hey, isn’t the export of jobs and obscene increase in CEO pay part of what was alluringly called “globalization” in the 1990s?
I was at the huge 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations known as "The Battle of Seattle," my hometown. WTO global corporate economics supported by D President and most of D Congress meeting in a prog D city. Rank cluelessness. Against? Labor unions, church groups, Indigenous peoples, scientists, small businesses, alt. economists, students, 3rd World debt relief advocates, eco-activists, small farmers (including an org. of Black American farmers,) medical professionals, and many more local and from around the world. For? Multinational corporations, their apologist economists, and paid for governmental officials. Clear now who won and who lost.
When I was in elementary school in Connecticut, not far from New Britian, home of The Stanley Works, the fathers of half the families on our street had union jobs. Almost all of the mothers stayed at home. They kept an eye on each other's kids, fed each other's kids, and had each other's kids over for sleepovers. There was constant adult supervision, and the fabric of the community was vibrant and strong.
When I was in junior high school things started to change. Jobs got offshored. Mothers joined the workforce so families could afford to keep their houses. Sleeping over at friends' houses, having lunch or dinner with them, and being watched over by their mothers became rare occasions. The fabric of the community frayed quickly when jobs got offshored.
By the time I was a young man my neighborhood was headed downhill fast. I could feel how the character had changed. When I was a kid, the grownups wondered about things like where they were going to go on vacation, or when they were going to put a pool in their backyard, or which new car they were going to buy. After the jobs got offshored they wondered about things like how they were going to pay the mortgage, and keep the old car running, and put food on the table. The American dream they'd enjoyed under a regime of regulated capitalism was turning into a nightmare.
I saw the fabric of my neighborhood fray and unravel as I grew up. I saw families have to pull up stakes and leave. I saw and felt divorce, drug abuse, and despair replace the sense of community. It happened all across the country.
I'm an old man now, swimming along with the rest of America in what decade after decade of unregulated capitalism has vomited up, doing what I can to keep from sinking. I'm sorry to hear about The Stanley Works. There were guys from the neighborhood I grew up in who worked there.
We have the tools in “The People’s Toolbox” to fix this. Dust off the Sherman Antitrust Act and put it to work busting monopolies. Make the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. Restore the estate tax. Fight Republican corruption. Invest in education, Deprivatize and regulate utilities and healthcare. We can fix this, but the current regime is stealing the people’s wealth and must be stopped.
Don't neglect thanking previous D regimes for similar. Like under Clinton, repealing New Deal regs prohibiting Wall St. bankster financiers from gross manipulation. Which helped enable the '08 crash, after which the Obama admin and D Congress bailed out guilty Wall St. while the millions of us working class nobodies and small farmers who lost jobs, pensions, homes, family farms got nothing. Both parties are sponsored by the same set of 1%er and corporate donors, who get what they've paid for. Until the D elite is weaned off their $$$ addiction by being primaried where possible or opposed by an explicitly pro-worker party, there is no reason to expect this econopathy to change.
Very sad to see the last of Stanley tape measures manufactured in the US and am sorry to hear 300 Americans are loosing their jobs. I agree with Fergus Howard's statement below.
Yet again some commenters take the easy way out, blaming stupid voters and the current administration for these ugly events as if de novo. But the story goes way back. The Ds dumped the New Deal and abandoned the majority working class decades ago, doing their best since to make nation and world safe for corporate economics. What is smart about refusing to see 40 years of suffering in the Rust Belt and the well documented deaths of despair? What is laudable about a D party that did away with financial regulations? A party that after the '08 crash, bailed out the Wall St. guilty while the millions of us working class people who lost jobs, pensions, homes got nothing.
We lessers are to accept "vote for the lesser of two evils" as if this were all we deserve, an argument holding no more water than HRC's blatant class prejudice "basket of deplorables." The psychological adage is when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Abusive relationships don't get better and evil is evil. The econ and political horrors finally visible to professional upper middle class D loyalists because of crude and openly power mad Rs are what the rest of us have been living with for decades. When Trump is gone, paradise won't ensue. Signs are the D party elite will continue the same econ abuse they've backed for years. Crocodile tears about Stanley are the only trickle down we expect.
Frankly this sucks. I have used Stanley tools for decades. I will no longer buy them. Our orange king is more interested in rewarding criminals than in protecting workers.
What a damn shame, and what a damn mess. My grandaddy loved Stanley tools...you left one out of place at your peril when I was growing up. Another icon sold us out. We really can't have nice things.
So if keeping manufacturing in the US meant the company could make only 12 billion a year instead of 15 billion, how many shareholders would have trouble paying their rent? And how many CEOs would have to give up anything at all?
The wholesale loss of millions of better paying jobs has caused much pain and suffering, but what should be done isn;t so clear-to me. We saw in Trump's fiasco on tariffs, that in the name of saving American jobs, we got a big shovelful of manure- No jobs saved and higher prices. And we can't go back to 1926 for a couple of reasons- Workers were hardly unionized and their pay and conditions were horrible. And global trade is going to happen. What is needed is a truly progressive -anti Predator , pro worker government, which can figure the policies that best serve the working class and the American people as a whole. And since that means the billionaires would no longer call the shots. that's a hard and demanding struggle. But if we do not take that up, nothing will change.
So where is our “fearless leader” in bringing manufacturing back to the good ol’ USA. What bs he is full of.
How many MAGA supporters know this??? Ask a MAGA - did you know? "America First" - NOT on your life! Profits over the American People! Billionaires........
I will covet and continue to use my old Craftsman and Stanley tools made in the USA. Hey, isn’t the export of jobs and obscene increase in CEO pay part of what was alluringly called “globalization” in the 1990s?
I was at the huge 1999 anti-WTO demonstrations known as "The Battle of Seattle," my hometown. WTO global corporate economics supported by D President and most of D Congress meeting in a prog D city. Rank cluelessness. Against? Labor unions, church groups, Indigenous peoples, scientists, small businesses, alt. economists, students, 3rd World debt relief advocates, eco-activists, small farmers (including an org. of Black American farmers,) medical professionals, and many more local and from around the world. For? Multinational corporations, their apologist economists, and paid for governmental officials. Clear now who won and who lost.
Thanks for the reference to a.i. smart tools. We dont need stanley tools anymore now that we can download the hammer app. To our phones.
;- ) !!!
When I was in elementary school in Connecticut, not far from New Britian, home of The Stanley Works, the fathers of half the families on our street had union jobs. Almost all of the mothers stayed at home. They kept an eye on each other's kids, fed each other's kids, and had each other's kids over for sleepovers. There was constant adult supervision, and the fabric of the community was vibrant and strong.
When I was in junior high school things started to change. Jobs got offshored. Mothers joined the workforce so families could afford to keep their houses. Sleeping over at friends' houses, having lunch or dinner with them, and being watched over by their mothers became rare occasions. The fabric of the community frayed quickly when jobs got offshored.
By the time I was a young man my neighborhood was headed downhill fast. I could feel how the character had changed. When I was a kid, the grownups wondered about things like where they were going to go on vacation, or when they were going to put a pool in their backyard, or which new car they were going to buy. After the jobs got offshored they wondered about things like how they were going to pay the mortgage, and keep the old car running, and put food on the table. The American dream they'd enjoyed under a regime of regulated capitalism was turning into a nightmare.
I saw the fabric of my neighborhood fray and unravel as I grew up. I saw families have to pull up stakes and leave. I saw and felt divorce, drug abuse, and despair replace the sense of community. It happened all across the country.
I'm an old man now, swimming along with the rest of America in what decade after decade of unregulated capitalism has vomited up, doing what I can to keep from sinking. I'm sorry to hear about The Stanley Works. There were guys from the neighborhood I grew up in who worked there.
We have the tools in “The People’s Toolbox” to fix this. Dust off the Sherman Antitrust Act and put it to work busting monopolies. Make the billionaires pay their fair share of taxes. Restore the estate tax. Fight Republican corruption. Invest in education, Deprivatize and regulate utilities and healthcare. We can fix this, but the current regime is stealing the people’s wealth and must be stopped.
Don't neglect thanking previous D regimes for similar. Like under Clinton, repealing New Deal regs prohibiting Wall St. bankster financiers from gross manipulation. Which helped enable the '08 crash, after which the Obama admin and D Congress bailed out guilty Wall St. while the millions of us working class nobodies and small farmers who lost jobs, pensions, homes, family farms got nothing. Both parties are sponsored by the same set of 1%er and corporate donors, who get what they've paid for. Until the D elite is weaned off their $$$ addiction by being primaried where possible or opposed by an explicitly pro-worker party, there is no reason to expect this econopathy to change.
Very sad to see the last of Stanley tape measures manufactured in the US and am sorry to hear 300 Americans are loosing their jobs. I agree with Fergus Howard's statement below.
Well Jim, you are just not cheering me up, keep up the good work and keep pissing in the wind.
george
Yet again some commenters take the easy way out, blaming stupid voters and the current administration for these ugly events as if de novo. But the story goes way back. The Ds dumped the New Deal and abandoned the majority working class decades ago, doing their best since to make nation and world safe for corporate economics. What is smart about refusing to see 40 years of suffering in the Rust Belt and the well documented deaths of despair? What is laudable about a D party that did away with financial regulations? A party that after the '08 crash, bailed out the Wall St. guilty while the millions of us working class people who lost jobs, pensions, homes got nothing.
We lessers are to accept "vote for the lesser of two evils" as if this were all we deserve, an argument holding no more water than HRC's blatant class prejudice "basket of deplorables." The psychological adage is when someone shows you who they are, believe them. Abusive relationships don't get better and evil is evil. The econ and political horrors finally visible to professional upper middle class D loyalists because of crude and openly power mad Rs are what the rest of us have been living with for decades. When Trump is gone, paradise won't ensue. Signs are the D party elite will continue the same econ abuse they've backed for years. Crocodile tears about Stanley are the only trickle down we expect.
NAFTA
Yep.
We are selfish money grubbing scumbags in The good ole USA!
Frankly this sucks. I have used Stanley tools for decades. I will no longer buy them. Our orange king is more interested in rewarding criminals than in protecting workers.
What a damn shame, and what a damn mess. My grandaddy loved Stanley tools...you left one out of place at your peril when I was growing up. Another icon sold us out. We really can't have nice things.
When a company moves production out of the USA, those are the conditions where I support tariffs. There aren't many others.
So if keeping manufacturing in the US meant the company could make only 12 billion a year instead of 15 billion, how many shareholders would have trouble paying their rent? And how many CEOs would have to give up anything at all?
Jim, gure
The wholesale loss of millions of better paying jobs has caused much pain and suffering, but what should be done isn;t so clear-to me. We saw in Trump's fiasco on tariffs, that in the name of saving American jobs, we got a big shovelful of manure- No jobs saved and higher prices. And we can't go back to 1926 for a couple of reasons- Workers were hardly unionized and their pay and conditions were horrible. And global trade is going to happen. What is needed is a truly progressive -anti Predator , pro worker government, which can figure the policies that best serve the working class and the American people as a whole. And since that means the billionaires would no longer call the shots. that's a hard and demanding struggle. But if we do not take that up, nothing will change.
NAFTA...